"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:41:32 +0100, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

3.85 acres. The developers should be able to squeeze 50
townhouses on
to that.
snip
I notice that the "guide price" is $75000 ...

or £50,000/hectare. Trying to decide if that is expensive, ie the
land already has outline planning permission of some sort.

The price for a house plot with planning permission is about £50,000.

I wasn't sure what proportion of a 150 to 200k house would be down to
the land it is built on.

The guide price is pricing the land as an allotment site, not a
potential residential development.

This is true the entry in the brochure for the Allotments doesn't
mention anything about planning permissions outline or otherwise. If
such any permission existed then I doubt the estate agent would have
left it out, as it adds so much to the value of the land... The
allotments lot is a tiddly part of an estate valued at 10 million.

Reading between the lines of the description I get the "don't even
think about buying this to build on, unless you want a fight with the
council and allotment holders" impression.

There are 31 allotments on the site, if everyone put in £2,500 that
would be £77,500. A buyer of Lot 1 (a whole farm) could well be
willing to sell the alloments to an alloment group just to make it
SEP (Someone Elses Problem). No demands for a water supply, ungraded
security fencing, maintenance of paths and access or WHY...

I should imagine that the council would support the formation of an
"Allotment Trustees" group, there are other sources of money, some
have already been mentioned. There are national organisation(s) for
Allotments, get in touch with them, they should know about other
sources and should be able to support the formation of a group.
Warning it will be hard work and it almost certainly end up with just
a few determined individuals doing most of the whilst the other
holders sit on their deck chairs by their sheds.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions everyone.

The portfolio describes the allotment site as "bare land", and I'm sure that
if any planning permission existed, they would have mentioned it. The
allotments site is as has been mentioned a very small part of a massive
portfolio. I think that Canford school, a major fee-paying school in the
region and the main item in Canford estate's portfolio, needs money for a
major rebuild they are having if I hear correctly. All this may be to
finance that, I don't know.

There is a recently formed allotment association in Ferndown, but it's a
strange business, the association was formed although no allotments exist
for them. They formed and took membership fees, and then said they were
trying to find some land to have allotments on. There has been quite a row
about it, especially as some people thoght they were getting on a waiting
list for existing plots.

I have sent an email to the local council, who have no allotments and are
therefore in breach of their obligations under the allotments act or
whatever it may be called, and have spoken to a chap from the allotment
association. Apparently a meeting is coming up this week, and this matter is
sure to be raised. But the chap I spoke to feels like me, that the site will
go to a developer. In recent years every available scrap of land round here
has been filled with granny flats and care homes, including one site where
several large homes in a row were demolished, notably one house which was
almost new.

There are both grass snakes and adders in the vicinity, I have seen the
former on my own allotment, and have heard about adders from others. I'm
going to get in touch with the herpetological society to see if they can get
involved. If we could get some form of SSSI or conservation area status that
would help.

I expect the most likely outcome will be that the site is purchased by a
developer, who will immediately give us notice to quit, and apply for
planning permission once they have got rid of us. I will still object to the
application, but without much hope of success.

Steve